Expert Series: Michele LaBotz, MD, FAAP on Physical Literacy

Physical literacy is really the capability that people have to move well. And so it involves the physical component of it. So is somebody moving their body parts in ways that are efficient and less likely to produce injury. But also, do they have the motivation to want to move? And do they have the confidence? Do they feel like they can go out and do what they want to do, whether it be playing soccer or going for a hike or mountain biking, but do they believe that their body has the ability to do that and do it in such a way that they find to be enjoyable and that they have a reasonable chance of being successful at.

In the past, we used to think about athletic development as a pyramid. And that concept actually more recently has gone out of favor, to be honest with you. Because when you talk about a pyramid, there’s this perception that some people are getting left behind, right? And that only the cream are going to come to the top. And in these days, I think we’re now thinking about this athletic development really is more of a rectangle. And so physical literacy is foundational and that’s true for everybody. And then some people are going to progress and they’ve got a lot of motivation and they’ve got a lot of intrinsic talent and they’re going to progress and they’re going to compete and they’re going to be successful. And they have the capacity to really compete at a really high level. There’s going to be a lot of us in the middle ground where we have fun and we like to play sports and we’re good enough, but we kind of progressed to a certain level.

But we’re still progressing, and we want to make sure that as many people progress as possible, and then there’s going to be others who really have no appetite for maybe even organized sport or competition. But physical literacy is still is a value for them as well, because we want everybody to be able to pursue healthy levels of physical activity throughout the lifespan. So when you look at specific activities, for instance, that are designed to really foster physical activity as well as providing that platform for athletic performance, a lot of times rather than sports specific skills, rather more general agility drills, more balance drills, more working on the fundamentals of movement. So even things like hopping and skipping and jumping, and if you’re in a sport with a ball, object control.

Can you throw a ball accurately? Can you catch the ball with good control? So it doesn’t have to be sports specific and really the younger the player is really the more general those activities should be, especially for the coaches that are looking at the young athlete. The most important thing that you can do for this is to make sure that their initial experience with the sport is fun and enjoyable. And if it is, even if they ain’t that great to start with, they’re going to want to become good and they’re going to want to work. So you’re going to develop that intrinsic motivation. If they don’t like it, no matter how good they are, they’re not going to want to do it. And it’s going to be a constant struggle to try to keep them engaged. So that emphasis really at that early, initial coach/player interaction, the key principle is to make it fun and enjoyable.

I think what’s really important to keep in mind for parents is that kids really should be compared to themselves and not to their siblings and not to their teammates. So taking this proficiency or performance component to it in terms of, okay, how have we progressed over the week, over the season, since last year? What type of progress have you made in your own individual journey of player athletic development?

The key thing to avoid is inserting a young athlete or a kid into some sports specific activity that they’re not ready for. So again, just being mindful within your specific sport, what are the fundamentals that you need in order to succeed at a given skill? Each athlete is going to come in at a different level at a different both development level, as well as a different level of experience in the sport. And you got to be willing to individualize the experiences of each kid. And that is harder work, but it’s going to pay off because you’re going to have athletes who are having more fun, who are easier to work with, are more coachable, and are more motivated to continue to move forward. So comparing an athlete to their prior level of performance is key and then individualizing and recognizing that some kids are just at a different stage than others are and incorporating that into your training program.